Reading the Internet:
Bias and Citation
A literacy workshop for Vintage High School
presented by Ann Sperske
What a student sees on the Internet
When asked to research immigration for a paper, if
he/she just uses Google to begin research, there are
over 21,100,000 hits to read.


Included is this site: Federation for Fair Immigration Reform
And more than 21 million others… but how does he/she identify
the bias, the authority, the sponsor? To know it’s a “good source”
When asked to do research on drugs, hormones and
human tissues, if he/she uses Google to begin research,
there are over 2,200,000 hits to read.


He/she might find this site: Human growth hormones
But what is the objective of the site? How do the ads found there
affect the data?
Evidence of Bias
Exaggeration?
Prejudice?
Inclusion/exclusion of facts?
Charged words?
Overgeneralization?
Opinion asserted as fact?
Checking the author &/or sponsor?
What is a sponsor?

The sponsor is the technical term used by Information
Literacy professionals and means the group or
organization promoting/maintaining or authoring a
web source.
Who is the author?



The one who actually writes the page/site
Is the author associated with a reputable institution or
organization? What are the basic values or goals of
the organization or institution?
Is the author's point of view objective and impartial? Is
the language free of emotion-arousing words and
bias? (as related to content)
Check on the “truthiness*” of the claim
If the statistics/data are from a site with an
undetermined author and/or sponsor then check
the facts further

www.easywhois.com to check sponsor
See example, www.smokingsection.com


Take those results into clusty, grokker or google to
see its ties to smoking clusty.com
Take one fact and run it through www.factcheck.org
See example, secondhand smoke kills 3,000 Americans each
year
“…truthiness refers to the quality of preferring
concepts or facts one wishes to be true,
rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”
*http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/truthiness_voted_2005_word_of_the_year/
How do we stop
Plagiarism?
Click here to skip to end
Some classroom strategies
Design strategically

Use your Resource Professional
Clever Classroom Time Control
Tweak your assignments
Redesign some for synthesis
Teach students using a workshop
approach
How do we combat plagiarism?
Design Strategically





Librarians can be the “mirror” and “student”
for the teacher… so use us
Use bibliographic citation software
Know the technology temptations
Use notecards
Use alternate assignments rather than
traditional reports
Control time allowed
Include interim check-ins
Require interim self-assessments
Read outlines
Read notecards
One-on-one conferences for drafts
Tweak your assignments
Assign in-class writing
Collect interim steps
Keep portfolios of student work
Ask students to submit work digitally
Require an annotated bibliography
Require “Works Consulted” on every research
project
Redefine the purpose or context to introduce
“real-like” elements
Redesign for synthesis
Persuasive Essay
Literary Analysis
Research Report
Country/state Report
Biography
Interview
Essay on theme
Report on Historical
Period
Debate speech
Author-to-Author
I-Search Paper
Briefing report for leader
Current Commentary
Oral History Archive
Personal Journal
Scrapbook/Persona
Teach students using a workshop approach
Teach search strategies explicitly
Practice assessing sources
Practice reading strategies
Coach time-management strategies
Use student mistakes as opportunities
Analyze real problems in class
Practice writing strategies
Practice plagiarizing
Assign an analysis of a paper-for-sale
References
Abilock, Debbie. “No More Cat and Mouse.” Noodletools.com. 9 Sept. 2005.
Noodletools. 11 Mar. 2008
<http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/ethical/catandmouse1.pdf>.
Barrett, Grant. “Truthiness.” American Dialect Society. 6 Jan. 2006. Double
Tongue Dictionary. 11 Mar. 2008
<http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/truthiness_voted_2005
_word_of_the_year/>.
Beck, Susan E. “Evaluation Criteria.” The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. 9 Aug.
2007. New Mexico State University Library. 11 Mar. 2008
<http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html>.
Chernow, Barbara. Beyond the Internet; Successful Research Strategies.
Lanham, MD: Bernan Press, 2007.
Koechlin, Carol, and Sandi Zwaan. Build Your Own Information Literate School.
Salt Lake City, UT: Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 2003. used handout
on page 39 in workshop
Ormandroyd, Joan. “Critically analyzing information sources.” Olin and Uris
Libraries of Cornell University. 6 Oct. 2004. Cornell University. 11 Mar. 2008
<http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/skill26.htm>.